Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Earlier in the fall I did a small project called “Business Cookies” Overall I thought that the project went well and I had received lots of great feedback from the guests who received and inevitably ate the cookies. However it wasn’t until this November that I received the biggest compliment I could receive regarding my work; the company had come back for more!! Only this time they asked “Can you make a healthy snack bar?”

Yes… yes I can!

The request was for a large order of healthy snack bars that would fit with their Tag line “Live Smart”. The bar also had to be peanut and nut free. Personally I LOVE peanuts, almonds, and cashews in my granola bars, so now that all nuts were out of the realm of possible I had to do some research on what were good healthy, and perhaps most important: tasty alternatives!

Flaxseed!

Oh flaxseed how we have become such great friends! I did my research and this stuff (flaxseed) is the best of the best! Flaxseed is PACKED with great nutritional value, but flaxseed also came with some initial problems. It was nearly impossible to find ANY producer who was willing and able to state their product was produced 100% peanut and ANY other nut free! So back to researching I went.

A lot research and searching on the interwebs led to Ellie! www.gotflax.com Ellie sells 100% nut free flax products and Ellie is the nicest lady I have ever encountered! She gave me a lot of advice (do’s and don’t) of flaxseed, and how best to prepare the flax seed for my bars. I had initially thought that I should toast the whole seed for a better crunch! Wooaaao that is not a good idea, in fact toasting the flaxseed destroys all the goodness the oils in flaxseed naturally provides! When Ellie noticed I was purchasing the whole seed she asked if I was going to grind the seed myself? I said “No, I would use the whole seed in the bar” she continued with her wealth of flaxseed knowledge and convinced me to purchase a slightly different product than I originally planned. “Cold Milled Flakes of Flaxseed”. See her supplier (aka, the local farmer down the road) created his own milling machinery that keeps from heating up during the process, thus preserving even more goodness than what other manufactures and at home grinders can throughout the grinding process! She said “you can go ahead and put the whole seed in the bar if you wish, but unless each individual seed gets chewed up, the stomach will not be able to digest the nutrients from the seed and it will just end up going out as more fiber for their diet… if you know what I mean” hahaha she was too sweet!

I think I am going to do another post soon on flaxseed specifically, so I’ll stop my rambling now. But I want you to know that I went the distance to make sure GREAT ingredients such as this flaxseed went into these “Smart Bars”.

Other ingredients were:

Quaker Old Fashion Oats

Sunflower Seeds (also another “nut free challenge”, needless to say I discovered another amazing supplier there too! Another story, another day.)

Flaxseed Flakes & Whole Flaxseed

Rice Cereal

Cranberries (Craisins)

Raisins

Chocolate Chips (Yes, it had to be done. Dark Chocolate. Don’t fret, for every 80 bars there is only two tablespoons of chocolate chips, just enough for a light taste!)

100% Pure Clover Honey

Pure Vanilla

Brown Sugar

Salt

Then I mixed it all together!

Spread it out, rolled it tight, and cut it into bar size servings!

Now for the tedious part! Bagging the bars!

Bagging the bars took hours upon hours; a fair bit more time than I had allotted for.

Since the bars took so much extra time to bag, I would like to take this moment extend a big thanks to a few of my “helpers” who spent several hours twist-tying the tops and applying the stickers to the packaging with me!

….They were paid handsomely with steak and beer!

And that’s how it was done! I packed up my 100+ lbs of “Live Smart Snack Bar”, braved the US Post Office during the busy holiday season, and shipped them off to be eaten by many CES Health and Fitness attendees!

I’m sorry not to post the recipe, but I have a feeling these are going to be a top seller for the bakery, and a girl has to have some secrets up her sleeve!

Would you like a Bertie’s Bakery Smart Bar? Be the first to order as the bakery is soon to be open! And for all of you in Vegas at CES – hope your enjoying them!

Such a great article which created his own milling machinery that keeps from heating up during the process, thus preserving even more goodness than what other manufactures and at home grinders can throughout the grinding process! She said “you can go ahead and put the whole seed in the bar if you wish, but unless each individual seed gets chewed up, the stomach will not be able to digest the nutrients from the seed and it will just end up going out as more fiber for their diet if you know what I mean” hahaha she was too sweet. Thanks for sharing this article.

Nice post which he request was for a large order of healthy snack bars that would fit with their Tag line “Live Smart”. The bar also had to be peanut and nut free. Personally LOVE peanuts, almonds, and cashews in my granola bars, so now that all nuts were out of the realm of possible had to do some research on what were good healthy, and perhaps most important: tasty alternatives. Thanks a lot for posting this article.